As Tarasque did not answer the call, the two officers started up greatly perplexed. They went to the rock behind which they had seen him disappear and found him lying on the ground.
"What's the matter with him? Is he ill? Tarasque! . . . Tarasque!"
They leaned forward. The dog was still warm. Suddenly the Lieutenant rose from his stooping posture with an oath and shook his hand, which was covered with blood. He had thrust it into the dog's throat.
Someone had cut the dog's throat!
The Commandant uttered an oath in his turn. The thing was past all belief. They had seen nothing, heard nothing. It must have been the work of a "lifer" who had escaped. He at once raised the alarm by firing his revolver in the air; and a patrol which was passing along the beach came hurrying up.
In order that the reader may understand what is about to happen, it may be as well to give an approximate idea of the general formation and aspect of this part of the world.
The Îles du Salut are divided one from the other by channels of some hundreds of yards in width. There is a sheltered roadstead in which the largest ships may ride at anchor. The mail boat belonging to the Compagnie Transatlantique which sails in the ordinary way between Martinique and Guiana, touches the islands both on her inward and outward journeys. The full strength of the Penitentiary is very considerable. The islands, in fact, are used as a depot, and convicts condemned to transportation remain there some time before they are classified, registered, and distributed.
The Commandant and the various administrative services are lodged on the Île Royale, as also are the victualling departments and a large hospital to which sick convicts from the Penitentiaries and Wood-cutting establishments at Cayenne and St Laurent are removed. In this island also are workshops for the manufacture of clothing, boots, and caps required for the use of the convicts.
The difficulty of escape, together with the possibility of maintaining a most rigorous discipline, caused Île Royale to be selected as the Penitentiary for hardened criminals and notorious outlaws.
There is a brick manufactory, and near the hospital, at the western end, stands a lighthouse with a fixed light which is visible at a distance of nearly twenty miles.